Directions for Change

Section 1:
What will Library and Archives Canada be?

1.3 Working with others to strengthen the whole of Canada's documentary heritage

Library and Archives Canada has stewardship of a collection of extraordinary range, depth and magnitude. It includes comprehensive collections of Canadian books, periodicals, newspapers, and government publications; manuscript collections of individuals and organizations of national significance; kilometres of government records; millions of visual artefacts: photographs, prints, drawings, portraits, plans, and maps; rich collections of broadcast and published audio, video and film; and more. The collection is both contemporary and historical. It sheds light on all subjects of Canadian endeavour-cultural, economic, social, and scientific.

Strengthening the network of documentary heritage

But Canada's documentary heritage collection extends well beyond LAC: it can be conceived as the collective body of Canadian textual, visual and audio-visual content found in institutions across the country. Here, our responsibility takes some different forms.

Building the strength of this broader collection; facilitating its coherent access, use and understanding; and preserving it over time-all are essential and require a network of effort. That effort involves archives and libraries of all types, cultural centres, other heritage institutions, and the communities of creators of Canadian cultural and documentary resources. LAC must assume a national leadership role in this broader landscape, fostering the creation of a more formalized network of decentralized activity based on purposeful partnerships, collaboration, and cooperative activity.

Better defining the network of responsibilities will allow LAC to more clearly define the scope of its own collection and the concept of "national significance." A national network for access, capitalizing on decentralized collecting and preservation responsibilities, will allow Canadians from all parts of Canada to access resources from other parts of the country. Reference services, providing an intermediary between users and information, can be fostered on a national basis through a digital reference network.

Our goal, to which we must re-commit with many partners, is that Canadians can find and use documentary resources easily, and at the time, in the place, and in the form that is convenient to them. Working toward that aim is a complex, multi-partner effort. Partners must include similar institutions, our professional communities, and communities of information creators and information consumers.

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